Accounts

November142014

Leah Buechley's speech on Make Magazine and Maker culture. "I am really tired of setting up structures where we tell young women and young brown and black kids that they should aspire to be like rich white guys. ... I do not trust [Make] with the laudable goal of 'Every Child a Maker' when the people they showcase do not represent by any wild stretch of the imagination 'every child'."

June132014

November182012

21:01

Alex Peake: Hacking the future of hacker spaces. What would the world be like if 100% of humans were literate coders, hackers, artists, scientists, thinkers & doers? How do we reach the "2 billion under 20" (not just the 20)?Featuring a shout-out to @metalab

October082012

20:32

“Those who depart from cultural or intellectual consensus need people to walk beside them and laugh with them to give them confidence. ...
We divide [groups] into cults and clubs, and dismiss the former for their insularity and the latter for their banality. The cult is the place where, cut off from your peers, you become crazy. The club is the place where, surrounded by your peers, you become boring. Yet if you can combine the best of those two – the right kind of insularity with the right kind of homogeneity – you create an environment both safe enough and stimulating enough to make great thoughts possible.”

August192011

13:57

Mitch Altman at Chaos Communication Camp 2011: I make a living making and selling this project that I made for myself, but enough people think it's cool enough that they give me enough money so that I can keep doing what I love. As I go around doing my workshops, more and more people [start doing the same]. Imagine what the world would look like if more people did that?

May212011

"Hackerspace members think of themselves as being extremely open-minded and welcoming, but they're just not. It's a very elite group [whose members] distinguish themselves very strongly from others with certain codes. [They do so unwillingly], but the problem is that they don't acknowledge that [fact]."

October242010

August282010

19:21

“We visited three hackerspaces ... From an olfactory point of view, it stinks of men, old carpet and cigarettes. ... There is an old teenager feel, the one who doesn’t want to leave his messy room. ...”

December082009

01:16

“Hackerspaces enrich their region's cultural and technological scene. They are places of information, discussion, experimentation and openness. They are the real world manifestations of a new paradigm, originated in the free, border-less and undiscriminating nature of the internet and its communications structures. Hackerspaces are places where freedom of opinion meets creativity and spawns inspiration. They're the birth-place of start-up firms that employ cutting edge technology, of altruistic community projects and of art in new media.”

November232009

04:33

Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis - WSJ.comWorkshops for people to share tools and ideas – called "hackerspaces" –
are popping up all over the country; there are 124 hackerspaces in the
U.S., up from a
handful at the start of last year.

June182009

May112009

22:53

“We're into questioning things
and authority, but frontal fight isn't an issue. Rather, we're trying to
build alternatives that render the oppressive system obsolete, and make it
easier to traverse it through its holes. ...By taking the stance of Us vs. Them, we [would] just [be] taking part in the domination system we actually reject.”